line Posted March 20, 2009 Report Posted March 20, 2009 Millennium Ranking of the Universities Why the Millennium Ranking? Global university ranking has become a common phenomenon, but the results have been mixed at the best.The THES – QS ranking depends on subjective methods, which in turn is a reflection of personal impressions of the interested parties. The top four have been typically Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge. Even though I did not expect such a rating to be balanced and objective, it is still astonishing to see that 19 out of the top 20 universities are in the English-speaking countries, which inevitably undermines its credibility. The ENS professional ranking, on the other hand, is based on the income and power of the graduates. This pragmatic approach has been hampered by the impact of the differential cost of living that is rather difficult to calibrate to say the least. The outcome of this ranking is also highly biased, as indicated by the fact that four out of the top ten are Japanese universities, an indicator of the high cost of living in Japan rather than a better education.The so-called academic ranking by Shanghai Jiaotong University is allegedly obtained by calculating the papers on Nature, Science and those cited by SCI、SSCI、AHCI, etc. This kind of indiscriminate addition of numbers fails to take into account of the differential significance of research projects in different fields, and strongly favor those universities producing a large amount of low quality papers. Perhaps the project leaders thought that this undesirable influence could be neutralized by including papers on big name journals such as Nature and Science. In reality, it merely produces new distortions as the two journals are devoted exclusively to natural science especially life science, which is only a small part of the university research and education. Worst of all, it has been found that the results is irreproducible by independent parties. Obviously, the credibility of this ranking is in doubt.Regardless, all the existing rankings are current rankings, which could not reflect the historical contribution of relevant schools and the overall trend of evolution of the rankings. Hence, it leaves much to be desired. This is particularly obvious if we consider the fact that the modern university system has a history of approximately one thousand years, during which time a modern industrial civilization sprung up. We gained tremendous progress, if I may, in our understanding of the universe, the structure of matters, the life on earth, as well as the psychological and social phenomena, and made numerous attempts to renew our theory of ethics, belief, and philosophy. It was within the time frame that things took place and evolved; we may not be able to gain a complete understanding of it without considering the time factor as it played and still plays a critical role in determining our lifestyle and our way of thinking. For this purpose, a new method of evaluating the scholars has been devised, which would receive further treatment later, to evaluate historical performance of various institutes. The result speaks for itself on the validity of this approach. Methods and Conclusion First of all, a number of outstanding scholars were selected based on their achievements. No quota was given to any fields of study. As matter of fact, all the fields are merely divided into five areas: physical sciences, engineering, biology, medicine, and arts. A high standard was adopted to minimize the differential academic attainment by different scholars. Politicians with important influence on the history are also included. Altogether, approximately 1400 names were selected. Each selected person gives a positive score to relevant colleges and universities. The sum becomes the score of the schools, which forms the basis of the ranking. Only the existing universities are ranked. A university that have been functioning as a single entity but divided recently is treated as a single university. All the colleges and affiliated institutes are considred part of a university. I. Academic RankingA. Millennium Cumulative Ranking The following reflects the cumulative scores from the 11th until the 20th century. 1 Université de Paris 2 University of Cambridge3 Harvard University4 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin5 Georg-August-Universität Göttingen6 University of Oxford7 University of Chicago8 Columbia University9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology10 Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова 11 Princeton University12 University of California, Berkeley13 University of London14 École Polytechnique 15 Cornell University15 Leland Stanford Junior University17 Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет18 California Institute of Technology19 École normale supérieure 20 Yale University21 Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität München22 Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich23 Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg24 Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna25 Universität Leipzig26 Università degli Studi di Padova27 Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn28 Johns Hopkins University29 Universiteit Leiden30 Université de Strasbourg 31 Universität Wien32 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor33 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign34 University of Wisconsin-Madison35 Københavns Universitet35 Московский Физико-Технический институт37 New York University37 University of California, Los Angeles39 University of Edinburgh39 University of Minnesota39 Universität Hamburg42 Российский государственный университет имени Иммануэла Канта43 Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”43 Technische Universität München 43 University of Pennsylvania43 東京大学 Tokyo U.43 University of California, San Diego48 Università degli Studi di Pavia48 Philipps-Universität Marburg 50 Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg50 Victoria University of Manchester 50 University of Calcutta (কলকাতা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়)53 Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen53 Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg53 Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena53 École nationale des ponts et chaussées53 Technische Universität Berlin53 Uniwersytet Warszawski59 Universität Basel59 Universität Zürich59 École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris59 University of Toronto59 City College of New York (City University of New York)59 University of Washington59 Rockefeller University66 Uniwersytet Wrocławski66 Carnegie Mellon University 66 京都大学 Kyoto U.69 Universidade de Coimbra69 University of St Andrews69 Università di Pisa69 Universiteit Utrecht69 Московский государственный технический университет им. Н. Э. Бауманаа69 Duke University69 Санкт-Петербургский Государственный Политехнический Университет76 Univerzity Karlovy v Praze76 Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg76 Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz76 McGill University80 University of Glasgow80 Uppsala universitet80 Université de Genève80 Università degli Studi di Torino80 Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg80 Imperial College, London80 University of Texas at Austin87 Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel87 Université de Lyon 87 Case Western Reserve University87 Washington University in St. Louis 87 Universiteit van Amsterdam92 Universidad de Salamanca92 Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowski92 Università degli Studi di Ferrara92 University of Dublin92 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey92 Universität Karlsruhe 92 University of Virginia92 École centrale Paris92 University of Colorado92 Vanderbilt University92 University of Bristol103 Université de Montpellier103 Universität Rostock103 Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem103 Львівський національний університет імені Івана Франка103 Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem103 Казанский государственный университет103 Харківський національний університет імені Каразіна103 Amherst College103 Indiana University103 Universidade de São Paulo103 University of Sheffield103 Université Libre de Bruxelles103 Purdue University103 Illinois Institute of Technology103 Московский городской народный университет имени А. Л. Шанявского103 Урáльский госудáрственный университéт и́мени А.М. Гóрького103 Московский авиационный институт120 جامعة القرويين 120 Université d'Orléans120 Università degli Studi di Firenze120 University of Groningen120 Tartu Ülikool120 Karolinska institutet120 Universiteit Gent120 George Washington University120 Санкт-Петербургский Технологический Институт 120 University of California, San Francisco120 Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen120 Ohio State University120 Stockholms universitet120 University of Liverpool120 École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris120 Націона́льний техні́чний університе́т Украї́ни «Ки́ївський політехні́чний інститу́т»120 北京大学 Peking U.120 University of British Columbia120 Australian National University120 Московский Инженерно-Физический Институт120 Новосибирский Государственный Университет141 Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II141 Université de Toulouse141 Université catholique de Louvain141 Université de Caen Basse-Normandie141 Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz141 Universidad Complutense de Madrid141 Brown University141 University of Pittsburgh141 Université de Bordeaux 141 University of Birmingham141 University of Cape Town141 University of Leeds141 Київський національний університет імені Тараса Шевченка141 University of Florida141 University of Melbourne141 University of Maryland, College Park141 Università degli Studi di Milano141 Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main141 State University of New York at Stony Brook160 Università degli Studi di Perugia160 Universitat de Barcelona160 Université de Poitiers160 Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald160 Nancy-Université160 Lund Universitet160 Dartmouth College160 Universitetet i Oslo160 Universidad de Buenos Aires160 University of Rochester160 University of Sydney160 Pennsylvania State University160 University of Mumbai (मुंबई विद्यापीठ)160 大阪大学 Osaka U.160 University of the Punjab (جامعه پنجاب)160 The University of Auckland160 清华大学 Tsinghua U.160 University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas 160 Freie Universität BerlinThere are 178 institutions in total. B. Centennial RankingAll names are modern to avoid any confusion. 11th -12th Centuries1 Univ. Paris 2 Alma Mater Studiorum Univ. Bologna 3 Univ. Oxford 13th -14th Centuries1 Univ. Paris 2 Alma Mater Studiorum Univ. Bologna 3 Univ. Oxford 4 Univ. Perugia 15th Century1 Alma Mater Studiorum Univ. Bologna 2 Univ. Paris 2 Univ. Ferrara 4 Univ. Oxford 4 Univ. Padova 4 Univ. Cambridge 16th Century1 Univ. Padova2 Univ. Paris 3 Univ. Oxford4 Univ. Cambridge5 Alma Mater Studiorum Univ. Bologna5 Univ. Pisa7 Univ. Leiden8 Univ. Coimbra8 Univ. catholique Louvain10 Univ. Salamanca10 Univ. Poitiers10 Univ. Basel 17th Century1 Univ. Oxford 2 Univ. Cambridge 3 Univ. Paris 4 Alma Mater Studiorum Univ. Bologna 4 Univ. Padova 4 Univ. Basel 4 Univ. Leiden 8 Københavns Univ. 18th Century1 École Polytechnique 2 Univ. Paris 3 Georg-August-Univ. Göttingen 4 Humboldt-Univ. Berlin 5 École natl. des ponts et chaussées 6 Univ. Cambridge 6 Friedrich-Schiller-Univ. Jena 8 Санкт-Петербургский гос. унив. 9 Российский гос. унив. Иммануэла Канта 9 Univ. Edinburgh 11 Univ. Oxford 11 Univ. Pavia 11 Univ. Leipzig 11 Univ. Torino 11 Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Univ. Bonn There are 15 institutions in total. 19th Century1 Humboldt-Univ. Berlin2 Georg-August-Univ. Göttingen3 Univ. Paris 4 Univ. Cambridge5 Санкт-Петербургский гос. унив.6 Univ. London7 Ludwig-Maximilian-Univ. München8 Harvard Univ.9 Московский гос. унив. М. В. Ломоносова 10 Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Univ. Bonn11 Ruprecht-Karls-Univ. Heidelberg12 École Polytechnique 12 Eidgenössische Tech. Hoch. Zürich12 Univ. Chicago15 Univ. Oxford15 Univ. Leipzig17 Univ. Wien18 Columbia Univ.19 Univ. Strasbourg 20 École norm. sup. 21 Johns Hopkins Univ.22 Univ. Zürich22 Philipps-Univ. Marburg 22 Uniw. Wrocławski22 Cornell Univ.26 Albert-Ludwigs-Univ. Freiburg26 Princeton Univ.26 École natl. sup.mines Paris26 Univ. Calcutta (কলকাতা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়)30 Российский государственный университет имени Иммануэла Канта30 Univ. Leiden30 Karl-Franzens-Univ. Graz30 Univ. California, BerkeleyThere are 33 institutions in total. 20th Century 1 Harvard Univ.2 Massachusetts Inst. Tech. 3 Univ. Cambridge4 Columbia Univ.4 Univ. Chicago6 Princeton Univ.7 Univ. California, Berkeley8 Leland Stanford Jr. Univ.9 Московский гос. унив. М. В. Ломоносова 9 California Inst. Tech. 11 Univ. Paris 12 Cornell Univ.13 Yale Univ.14 Univ. Oxford15 École norm. sup. 15 Univ. London17 Univ. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign18 Univ. Michigan, Ann Arbor19 Georg-August-Univ. Göttingen20 Eidgenössische Tech. Hoch. Zürich20 Univ. California, Los Angeles22 Univ. Wisconsin-Madison22 Johns Hopkins Univ.24 Univ. Minnesota24 Univ. California, San Diego26 Univ. Pennsylvania26 New York Univ.26 Московский Физико-Техн. инст.29 東京大学30 Univ. Washington31 Санкт-Петербургский гос. унив.31 Tech. Univ. München 33 Univ. Toronto33 City Col. of New York (City Univ. New York)33 Carnegie Mellon Univ. 36 Ludwig-Maximilian-Univ. München36 Humboldt-Univ. Berlin36 京都大学36 Univ. Hamburg40 Rockefeller Univ.41 Univ. Leiden41 Univ. Strasbourg 41 Duke Univ.44 Univ. Roma “La Sapienza”44 Københavns Univ.44 École Polytechnique 44 Uniw. Warszawski44 Case Western Reserve Univ.44 Univ. Colorado44 Univ. Texas at Austin44 Санкт-Петербургский гос. ПолиТехн. унив.52 Rutgers, The State Univ. New Jersey52 Univ.eSão Paulo52 McGill Univ.52 Victoria Univ. Manchester 52 Vanderbilt Univ.52 Univ. Bristol52 Purdue Univ.52 Illinois Inst. Tech. 60 Ruprecht-Karls-Univ. Heidelberg60 Tech. Univ. Berlin60 Univ. Sheffield60 Imperial Col., London60 Washington Univ. in St. Louis 60 Univ. California, San Francisco60 Ohio State Univ.60 Univ. Amsterdam60 Univ. British Columbia60 Новосибирский гос. унив.70 Univ. Wien70 Univ. Leipzig70 Eberhard Karls Univ. Tübingen70 Univ. Edinburgh70 Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem70 Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Univ. Bonn70 George Washington Univ.70 Univ. Virginia70 Univ. LibreBruxelles70 Univ. Florida70 Univ. Calcutta (কলকাতা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়)70 Univ. Maryland, Col. Park70 Уральский гос. унив.70 Московский авиационный инст.70 Московский Инженерно-Физический инст.70 Australian natl. Univ.70 State Univ. New York Stony Brook87 Univ. St Andrews87 Albert-Ludwigs-Univ. Freiburg87 Uppsala Univ.87 Univ. Genève87 Brown Univ.87 Karolinska inst.87 Amherst Col.87 Indiana Univ.87 Univ. Cape Town87 Московский гос. Техн. унив. им. Н. Э. Бауманаа87 Univ. Rochester87 Univ. Melbourne87 Pennsylvania State Univ.87 Stockholms Univ.87 Univ. Liverpool87 The Univ. Auckland87 Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Univ. Frankfurt am Main87 Univ. Texas Southwestern Med. Ctr. Dallas There are 104 institutions in total. The University of Paris leads the others by a comfortable margin. This is primarily a result of its long history. It is known that Oxford essentially resulted from the split of Paris, and Cambridge, from Oxford. Harvard was derived from Cambridge since Mr. J. Harvard was an alumnus of Cambridge. In this sense, the University of Paris is the starting point of the modern university. The best graduates of Oxford and Cambridge went to Paris to complete their study. Pope Gregory IX praised the university as “the mother of the sciences” and “city of letters”. Its dominance was not challenged until the Italian Renaissance, and it remained among the top three before the rise of the American universities in the 20th century.It is interesting to note that the top two universities often belong to the same country staring from the 17th century, and could be associated with historical events. When Oxford and Cambridge toped the academic world, there was a revolution on Britain. When École Polytechnique and Paris ranked on the top, it was the time of French Revolution. The European revolution of 1848 swept through Germany, when Berlin and Göttingen bested the world. In the 20th century, Harvard and MIT were sitting on the crown, presumably as the result of the rise of the new superpower. What we have described here is a historical phenomenon, and not of minor significance. Although it is hard to prove the cause-and-effect relation, it is unlikely that the observation was merely a coincidence. It is conceivable that the European revolutions apparently had a liberating effect on academic research in that country concerned. It has little to do with the economic development since the Spanish and the Dutch empires did not achieve much in this aspect, nether did the British Empire of the 19th century when Cambridge merely grasped the 4th place. In contrast, the independence movement in the third world has little positive impact on the academic research. As matter of fact, it often has a negative impact. For example, the University of Calcutta was the best university outside Europe and USA in the 19th century, but it started to decline after the Indian Independence. Similar situation happened to the other South Asian universities. Also the Chinese universities in the mainland declined after Mao’s Revolution. Hence, the academic performance of the universities in a given country could serve as a useful indicator for the progressiveness of the social change. II. Nationalities of the Selected Scholars These scholars come from 52 countries (by birth) listed below. No. Counrty % 1 USA 16.59 2 Germany 13.89 3 France 13.41 4 Russia/CCCP 11.61 5 UK 11.06 6 Italy 6.08 7 Netherlands 2.63 8 India 2.35 9 China 2.00 10 Austria 1.94 11 Japan 1.87 12 Switzerland 1.80 13 Poland 1.38 14 Canada 1.24 14 Hungary 1.24 16 Sweden 1.11 17 Spain 1.04 18 Denmark 0.90 19 Belgium 0.83 20 Australia 0.69 21 Iran 0.62 22 Portugal 0.55 23 Brazil 0.48 23 Czech 0.48 23 Ireland 0.48 26 Norway 0.41 27 Argentina 0.28 27 Finland 0.28 27 South Africa 0.28 30 Croatia 0.21 30 New Zealand 0.21 30 Pakistan 0.21 30 Turkey 0.21 34 Bulgaria 0.14 34 Iraq 0.14 34 Lithuania 0.14 34 Philippines 0.14 34 Romania 0.14 39 Algeria 0.07 39 Azerbaijan 0.07 39 Bosnia 0.07 39 Egypt 0.07 39 Greece 0.07 39 Kenya 0.07 39 Mexico 0.07 39 Morocco 0.07 39 Palestine 0.07 39 Serbia 0.07 39 Syria 0.07 39 Tunisia 0.07 39 Uzbekistan 0.07 39 Venezuela 0.07 The distributions of the scholars from the top-six ranking countries and the total number are shown in the figure. The total curve display a clear downward trend in the 14th century, obviously related to the “Black-Death”. It was followed by a minor peak in Italy corresponding to the Renaissance. Afterwards, there was a major peak in France, corresponding to the French Revolution, followed by a sharp peak in Germany corresponding to the European Revolution and a peak in Russia corresponding to the Russian Revolutions. The rise of the US was characterised by a much greater scale and was probably a different kind of matter, possibly a result of the emergence of the superpower in the 20th century. Taken together, the evolution of the academic ranking of the nations and of the universities suggest that the western history in the last one thousand years could be divided into four periods: (1) the High Middle Age centred in Paris; (2) the Renaissance centred in Italy; (3) the European Revolutions spreading from the Britains through France and Germany and eventually ended in Russia; (4) overlapping the Russian Revolutions was the rise of the superpower in North America as the beginning of capitalist globalisation. Russia was never a superpower judging either from its academic performance or from its GDP. III. Ranking by Research Areas A. Physical Sciences1 Paris1 Cambridge3 Göttingen4 Chicago5 Princeton6 Berlin7 Mosccow8 Harvard9 EP Paris10 MIT11 UC Berkeley12 ETH Zurich13 St. Petersburg13 ENS Paris15 Columbia B. Engineering1 MIT2 Stanford3 Harvard4 Moscow Tech. U.4 Cal. Tech.6 Cambridge6 Columbia6 ETH Zurich6 Moscow Phys.-Tech. Inst.10 Michigan10 UC Berkeley10 St. Pertersburg Tech. U.10 Moscow Aviation Inst. C. Biology1 Cambridge2 Standford3 Oxford3 Berkeley3 Cal. Tech.6 Harvard6 London6 MIT6 Wisconsin6 Illinois11 Columbia11 Rockefeller D. Medicine1 Cambridge1 Harvard3 Columbia3 London5 Johns Hopkins6 Paris6 Berlin8 Padova8 Cornell8 U. Washington8 Rockefeller12 Bologna12 Washington U. St. Louis12 UCSF E. Arts1 Paris2 Oxford3 Berlin4 London6 Columbia7 Harvard8 Bologna10 Yale10 Göttingen12 Wien IV. Ranking of the Academic Cities This is based on the universities located in the metropolitan area: 1 Paris2 Boston3 New York4 Berlin5 Москва6 Chicago7 London7 Los Angeles7 San Fracisco7 Санкт-Петербу́рг11 München12 Zürich Discussion Ranking of higher education institutions has always been a controversial affair, not least because the subject matter is often a matter of opinion depending on the philosophy of science and education. For some people, education is primarily a mean of investment, and comparison of the graduate’s income has been going on for many years in the US. The ENS ranking brought this matter to everyone’s attention as it is consistently dominated by the Japanese universities, presumably due to the high living cost and thus higher nominal income in Japan, which has nothing to do with the real income or the quality of the education system. As far as the academic performance is concerned, it is difficult, to say the least, to formulate a universally accepted criteria and a method of quantification, which could explain why so many rankings have been based on subjective scoring. If subjective method is still somewhat meaningful within a country, it breaks down rapidly once applied in an international setting as most people would like to rank those in their country on the top, followed by those in country of the same language. As a result, international ranking of this nature often becomes mixed with unhealthy doses of nationalism, as the THES-QS results have demonstrated. Such results are merely generated to please the reader and its value rests primarily on political propaganda and reinforcement of cultural identity. SJU made an attempt in quantifying the research output in an objective manner, but the outcome has been problematic, as already mentioned in the beginning of this article. In essence, SCI and the like were not designed to be used for this purpose. There is no way you could compare the pea paper of Mendel that laid the foundation of modern genetics with papers on those run-of-the-mill journals. Some scientists could publish as many as a thousand papers and yet achieve mo more than the single paper of Mendel. Hence, we are facing the possibility of huge distortion if we rely on paper counting to measure academic performance. Here, we are not even considering some papers involving unethical misconducts, which is not so rare in certain parts of the world. To overcome this problem, counting the outstanding scholars is a viable alternative, as it reduces the workload and allows a more careful consideration of the achievement on individual basis regarding originality, difficulty, influence, and pragmatic values. Any error that is bound to happen will only be in the scale of one instead of several hundred folds as it happens in counting papers. In addition, errors in scholar selection are generally random and could cancel out in larger samples whereas errors in paper counting are often systematic in nature and tend to accumulate in larger samples. The judgments by experts in history of science and in individual fields as shown by the honours and awards are given careful consideration, although this does not prevent necessary correction of the past mistakes in judgment. For example, Nobel prize were never given to Lise Meitner, Дми́трий Менделе́ев, Rosalind Franklin, Лев Толсто́й, Henrik Ibsen and Émile Zola, just to name a few. The ranking here is not award-based, but it takes such element into consideration to maximize the objectivity of the process and the result. Certain reader has raised the question about relationship between the proof of the education and the achievement of the scholars. This is a delicate issue, and it is considered a job of the historians and education researchers. It is obviously beyond the scale of this study. Overall speaking, the most significant contribution of this study is not about the method of scoring but the fact that it takes the entire history into account. By observing the dynamic change of the individual schools and the entire nation over time, it has been possible to reveal certain general trends of the academic performance of the schools and nations in relation to critical historical development. This achievement by itself demonstrates the validity of the methodology and provides an important point of departure for anyone interested in such investigations. (first posted on Science Forum) Quote
Tormod Posted March 20, 2009 Report Posted March 20, 2009 This has been posted to many forums, by both you and apparently other people, over the years. What is new about it now? Quote
line Posted March 21, 2009 Author Report Posted March 21, 2009 This has been posted to many forums, by both you and apparently other people, over the years. What is new about it now? Are you sure? The first posting in English was only done one week ago. Quote
Tormod Posted March 21, 2009 Report Posted March 21, 2009 Fair enough, I may have looked at the wrong date when I first saw it elsewhere. But it has appeared here which is not a science forum: Millennium Ranking of the Universities And here: Science & Philosophy :: View topic - Millennium Ranking of the Universities And here: Science Forum - Which is the Best University in HIstory? I wonder - why are you posting this in so many places? What is the purpose? Quote
line Posted March 22, 2009 Author Report Posted March 22, 2009 Are you suggesting that I have an ulterior motive? Chronicle was suggested by the moderator in Science & Philosophy Forum. So I followed his advice and also found some other forums. Obviously, not everyone is hostile to my paper. By the way, the THES ranking and the Shanghai Jiaotong U. ranking has also appeared in many websites. Hey, we live in a society of free speech. Finally, I should mention that I have just posted another article on some other English forums, but not in this forum, so I don't have to engage in an endless destructive conversation. Quote
line Posted April 1, 2009 Author Report Posted April 1, 2009 I finally modified section III by moving computer science from math into engineering. it looks better now. Quote
line Posted June 12, 2009 Author Report Posted June 12, 2009 In view of the previous post on university ranking, there has been some debate about how my list compare to the others. Here I am presenting a list of the top 20 schools below for those interested in such issues. All the data are from 2008 although the Wuhan Univ. ranking is from 2007. Of course, I use the 20th century ranking in my original article instead of the millennium list, which is a totally different kind of beast. The 20th century list is the closest to a current ranking I have got. It seems my ranking is fairly consistent with the “average list”, so to speak. The French and the Spanish rankings are the lists that are really out of line with the rest. But they are measuring different things. In theory, you could do statistical treatment to demonstrate different lists, but the lack of certain schools from certain list makes it tricky, so I decided not to bother. Quote
line Posted June 13, 2009 Author Report Posted June 13, 2009 To compare various ranking results as posted above, a power regression was conducted using the data from each ranking against the sum of Fields Prizes and Nobel Prizes. The results of R2 are listed below (all being highly significant except for the last two showing no significance): Shanghai: ARWU 0.85Lin: 20th century 0.70UK: Times 0.41US: Newsweek 0.39Spain: Cybermetrics 0.38France: ParisTech 0.15Taiwan: HEE 0.076 How much correlation is most desirable is contestable. Too much of it is not desirable since it would mean nothing more than another way of calculating the prizes. On the other hand, a complete lack of such correlation as in the French and the Taiwanese rankings suggests serious faults in the methodology. In a second round of similar test involving more than 50 schools, the Shanghai ranking and Lin's 20th century ranking were compared, and the results are listed below: Lin: 20th century 0.58Shanghai: ARWU 0.46 Therefore, Lin's method has held out better when the range extends to wards the lower end of the list compared to the method of the Shanghai ARWU by showing a higher consistency. Quote
line Posted January 9, 2010 Author Report Posted January 9, 2010 Dishonesty in academia(China Daily)Updated: 2009-02-04 07:43 Comments(0) PrintMailIf honesty is the best policy, it is nowhere more so than in scientific research and the academia in general. That explains why professors have always been held in high esteem and so have institutions of higher learning. Yet, repeated exposures of cheating and plagiarism by professors in recent years have brought to light an unholy link between academic papers and dishonesty. The latest exposures of cheating in academic research papers published in several overseas magazines last year add to the sad story. They seem to have come as another bombshell further shattering the public credibility of academic research in institutions of higher learning. The fact that an academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, along with the prestigious Zhejiang University, is involved points to a deeper malaise. It lends further credence to the increasingly strong accusations about a contaminated academic environment and lack of professional ethics among professors. In several papers showing how a herbal medicine impacts cardiac infraction, the same figures were used for different experiments. And the same papers have been submitted to different magazines for publication after minor changes were made. Further investigations are yet to be conducted into how the research team headed by the academician in Zhejiang University had plotted the cheating in more than a dozen papers. But this biggest-ever academic scandal is for sure a wake-up call that the Chinese universities are facing a crisis of credibility. And behind the crisis is the phenomenon that quite a number of professors or so-called scholars have benefited from their dishonest "dissertations" and "research programs". As everyone knows, good breakthroughs do not come without hard work, but hard work does not necessarily bring about any substantial result. This is the cruel truth about academic study. This also means anyone dedicating his or her life to academic research should never assume that his or her work will necessarily produce worthwhile results. It should be always those who have truly dedicated themselves to academic studies without bothering about fame and material gains who will hopefully make the greatest contributions to scientific progress. But some academics' pursuit of fame and material gains, even with dishonest means, is eroding fundamental principles for academic research: hard work and spirit of dedication. Their "success" will quite probably encourage more to follow their examples and thus further deteriorate the academic atmosphere. We need a thorough investigation into this scandal primarily to warn the entire academic community against the dangers of dishonest practices. The bad apples involved should be severely punished to serve as a deterrent to others. Actually we need something much bigger - an overhaul of the mechanism for academic study in institutions of higher learning. The quota on the number of research papers to be published annually by professors needs to be scrapped. This has exerted pressure on professors, and some are forced to cheat or plagiarize in order to get their papers published. The exposure of all irregularities behind this scandal may probably provide useful ideas for thoroughly restructuring the management of academic studies. (China Daily 02/04/2009 page4 Quote
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